288 



GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



^iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 



I Protest Against Quarantine 37 I 



I Statements regarding Federal Horticultural Board Quarantine 37, Presented at the Horticultural | 

 I Conference in New York, June 15, 1920 | 



liii iiiiiiinniiinin iiiihiiiiiiiiiiiiu i iiiiiuiuiiiinimiii i i i iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiii iiiii niiniiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiii iiiinuiii iiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiikI 



PROFESSOR CHARLES SARGENT 



THE Arnold Arboretum is a museum of living plants in which 

 Harvard University has agreed by contract to grow and 

 display every tree and shrub able to support the Xew England 

 climate. In order to carry out this contract the University has 

 been importing plants and seeds from other scientific institu- 

 tions and from commercial nurseries since 1874: and for forty 

 years has been carrying on explorations in all parts of North 

 America and in Japan, China, Korea, Manchuria and Siberia. 

 These explorations have been undertaken for the purpose of 

 introducing into this country trees and other useful plants which 

 had been unknown before the establishment of the .\rboretum. 



The aim of the Arboretum is to increase the knowledge of 

 trees; its museum of living plants growing in Massachusetts is 

 only one of its methods for accomplishing this purpose. It is 

 interested in iPiCreasing the knowledge of plants in all parts of 

 the United States and in all foreign coi^itries. Much of its 

 work of exploration has been undertaken for the purpose of 

 bringing into this country and into Europe trees w'hich can suc- 

 ceed only in the Pacific states, Louisiana. Florida, or the milder 

 parts of Europe. For the Arboretum there is no foreign country. 



The Arboretum is net charged with having introduced into 

 this country any serious plant disease or dangerous insect on 

 the many thousand plants which have been imported, often with 

 soil at their roots, from every country of the northern hemis- 

 phere, or on any of the millions of seedings which it has raised 

 and distributed During its entire existence plants have come 

 to the Arboretum from foreign countries except during the au- 

 tumn and winter of 1919-20. The Arboretum desired to import 

 from Europe a few plants in the autumn of 1919 and received 

 permission from the Federal Horticultural Board to do so on 

 condition that they were sent first to Washington fur inspection 

 and disinfection. It was impossible to arrange for the inspec- 

 tion of these plants at Boston : and the Arboretum, having had 

 unfortunate experiences with early importations which had been 

 sent to Washington for inspection by agents of the Federal 

 Horticultural Board, has decided to give up entirely importing 

 plants and seeds until some modifications is inade in the methods 

 of the Horticultural Board. As the .\rboretum has been active 

 and successful, especially in the last twenty years, in the mtro- 

 dution of new .plants into the United States it is believed that 

 its inability to continue this work will be a serious blow to hor- 

 ticultural progress in the United States. 



The managers of the Arboretum, in common with everj- intel- 

 ligent and public-spirited citizen of the United States, believe in 

 the exclusion of plant diseases and insects destructive to plants; 

 they believe that the methods and rulings of the Horticultural 

 Board can be modified and improved so that the desired results 

 can be obtained without subjecting imported plants to the dangers 

 and delays which it is impossible for them to escai^e under the 

 existing regulations and methods of the Federal Horticultural 

 Board. Officers of the Government realize that these methods 

 and regulations cause serious delays and the unnecessary destruc- 

 tion of plants, and agree with many importers that these delays 

 and dangers can be reduced by the establishment of inspection 

 stations at ports of entry and by changes in the list of excluded 

 plants. If such inspection stations could be established more 

 prompt and better service would certainly be obtained. Such 

 changes can only be obtained by the active co-operation of every 

 organization and of every individual in the United States in- 

 terested in the cultivation of plants; and it should, I believe, be 

 the duty of this Convention to urge the necessity of co-operation 

 with the Department of Agriculture in an attempt to obtain 

 changes in its rulings and methods in regard to the importation 

 of plants on which the future of American horticulture depends. 



W. C. BURRAGE 



THE government, people, horticulturists and horticultural 

 societies of Massachusetts recognize the fact that the 

 United States Government, the United States Congress, the De- 

 partment of Agriculture and the Federal Horticultural Board 

 are seeking to foster and advance the horticulture and agricul- 

 ture of the whole country, and that they are not trying to help 

 any one interest at the expense of other interests. 



Massachusetts, which is sufifering so much from the Gypsy 

 Moth, the Brown-Tail Moth, the While Pine Rust, the Corn 



Borer, and other imported injurious plant diseases and insects, 

 and is fesrful of others yet to come, surely does not question the 

 principles of Quarantine 37 or the wisdom of the Law of 1912 

 under which it was lawfully issued. 



\\ e do not protest against the law or the quarantine. Still less 

 de we question the m.otives or intentions of those who framed 

 the law or the quarantine or those who are enforcing them. 



We do earnestly protest against what the Federal Horticultural 

 Board, itself, calls its drastic provisions, some of which we main- 

 tain are wasteful, inefficient, unsound and dangerous. 



We do ask that the regulations of the quarantine and their 

 enforcement shall be reasonable, effective and humane. We do 

 ask that quarantine regulations of the Government, acting for 

 the benefit of the whole people, shall be conducted in the right 

 way. W'e ask that the United States Government, with all its 

 power and wealth, shall handle the business part of this subject 

 in a business way, the sanitary part in a scientific way, and the 

 human part in a humane way. 



Ninety years ago she established the Massachusetts Horticul- 

 tural Society, which consists of over a thousand members and 

 is truly representative of the horticultural interests of the State. 



Nearly 50 years ago, within her borders, was established the 

 .\rnold Arboretum, the botanical department of Harvard Col- 

 lege ; and here a vast amount has 1)een done for the horticulture 

 of the whole country. 



And Massachusetts, during a long period, has enacted many 

 laws, seeking not only to improve agriculture, but also to protect 

 and carry forward the science of horticulture in the broadest way. 



We want protection against future danger to our horticulture 

 and agriculture and to that of the whole country, but w'e do not 

 want to be prevented from safely importing" those trees, shrubs 

 and plants which do not carry dangerous diseases or insects and 

 which will give assistance, comfort, and pleasure to our people. 



In this state, if we find a person who may possibly have small- 

 pox coming into the port of Boston from a foreign shore, we do 

 not send him through the streets of Boston in a crwded street- 

 car and '.hen in a crowded railroad car to a contagious-disease 

 iiuilding in the Berkshire Hills, a hundred miles away, in order 

 to determine whether or not he has smallpox, and if he has, to 

 keep him there until he is fumigated and recovered from the dis- 

 ease. We believe that the place to quarantine against dangerous 

 disease is at the threshold, that is, at the port of entry, and we 

 do it here and not in the Berkshire Hills. 



We believe that the place to inspect, fumigate, and treat piants 

 is at the port of entry, and w'e de not l>elieve that it is economical, 

 efficient, safe or justifiable, for example, to send plants from San 

 Francisco, through California. Arizona, Te.xas, Louisana, and 

 other states, to Washington, 3,000 miles away, for inspection and 

 treatment, and then to send them back to San Francisco to be 

 put into use. We believe that such a requirement is not only 

 extravagant, wasteful and unnecessary, but most ill-advised — and 

 we do protest against such regulations. 



We also believe that the inspection and treatment and the 

 acceptance or rejection of plants should be by high-grade, skilled, 

 experienced inspectors of the Government — not students, but 

 those who can determine what is well and what is ill, what is 

 reasonable and what is unreasonable, in the treatment of plants. 



In other words, we do not favor any evasions or violations of 

 the law. We ask that unsound and diseased or infested plants 

 shall be rejected at the port of entry. We also ask that sound, 

 clean plants shall be allowed to come in at one of the large 

 ports and there be inspected, treated, and accepted or rejected, 

 without unnecessary delay, transportation, expense or danger. 



We ask that the Government establish suitable inspection serv- 

 ices at tW'O ports on the west coast, such as San Francisco and 

 Seattle, one on the south such as New Orleans, and two on the 

 east, such as New York and Boston; and that the final decision 

 upon plants be made at these ports and the plains there destroyed 

 or released, as the case may be. 



Finally, we ask that the regulations be revised in a business 

 v,ay and made safe and sound for all concerned. 



If it is a fact that the loss to this country from imported plant 

 diseases and insects is over a million dollars a day, then surely 

 the Federal government can afford to pay, and Congress can 

 justly appropriate, the small amount necessary to establish and 

 maintain the inspection services at these ports which may be 

 required in addition to what the government already has there. 



